Becoming A Winner

Winning has to start somewhere Red Sox owner John W. Henry made his fortune by recognizing trends and riding them until they reversed. Years after the 1994 lockout turned so many fans away, he recognized an emerging trend in baseball: a renewed interest in and enthusiasm for the game. Henry had already been an owner in pro baseball by virtue of a stake in the Florida Marlins. But he knew that ownership of the Marlins — who do not own their stadium and have rarely benefited from a very loyal fan base — represented at best a good stepping stone into baseball, a world with considerable barriers to entry.

The purchase sum for the Marlins was ordinary and the team even more so, especially considering the fact that, in spite of their having clinched a championship title in record time, former owner H. Wayne Huizenga had been forced to dismantle the Marlins roster to save money. When Henry, a math whiz and commodities trader, bought the team from Huizenga in 1999 for $150 million, it was because he recognized an opportunity. Henry saw that he needed an entry point into one of the most conservative leagues in pro sports but that, once in, he could bide his time and flip his asset.

Winning requires recognizing weakness Henry was brilliant at recognizing trends, and he also had an eye for recognizing weaknesses. Baseball had one glaring weakness: the franchise in Montreal. Ironically, Montreal was once one of the crown jewels of MLB, notably in the late '70s and early '80s. But the fact remains that there was never an owner in Montreal with the fortitude or the stomach for the high stakes game of pro baseball. Exasperating the situation further was the fact that the American greenback at one time traded for $1.60 CAD, making any would-be owner think twice about buying the team.

Montreal did eventually find an owner in Jeffrey Loria, but he got in and out of the franchise so fast that fans to this day still don't know what hit them. Loria traded in his ownership of the Montreal Expos in a three-way swap between himself, John W. Henry and Major League Baseball. Loria got the Marlins, the Expos were dumped on MLB and Henry acquired the BoSox. On his end of the bargain, Henry had to pony up a record $700 million for the Boston franchise but, unlike Florida, Boston did own its stadium and had a TV network to leverage the games to boot. The investment paid off, as the Red Sox followed in the Marlins' footsteps by winning the World Series just a year after the Marlins had won it all — in 2003, with Loria at the helm.

Winning takes time In Hollywood scripts, teams turn their fortunes around at a torrid pace. In 1997, under Huizenga, the Marlins had already set a record (since broken by the Arizona Diamondbacks) for winning a World Series in the least amount of time since their birth.

In real life, however, winning usually takes more time. The mighty Yankees went through an 18-year championship drought of their own between 1978 and 1996. When Henry sold the Marlins in 2002, there was no way he could have known that the Marlins would win it all the following year. And watching his own BoSox make it to the finals just two years after acquiring them was probably more than he had hoped for.